Crickets, it's whats for dinner

cricketsMary Brown writes in WUWT Tips and Notes:

No more steak for you earth hating skeptics. Time to learn to eat sustainable crickets… so says the Washington Post. Of course it mentions climate change.

The article also says this…

“The industry leapt forward following a 2013 United Nations report warning that with nine billion people on Earth in 2050, current food production will have to double. Between a lack of space and climate change concerns, we’ll need more sustainable solutions. Crickets happen to be a great option.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/08/20/gateway-bug-how-crickets-could-hook-america-on-insect-eating/

Interesting statement since the earth currently has 7.2 billion people, many of whom are clearly overfed already. I’m not sure why a 25% increase in population would require a 100% increase in food.

Also, the USA already produces food for 1.2 billion Americans and we waste 75% of it. Worldwide, food production is enough for roughly 14 billion people with 50% waste. Zero waste is unrealistic, but I’ll bet the food waste ratio approached zero in Europe in winter of ’45.

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NC Brian
August 20, 2014 7:52 am

John the Baptist ate locus and wild honey.

wws
August 20, 2014 7:56 am

What about the Soylent Green?

beng
August 20, 2014 7:57 am

Chirp. Burp.

Stephana
August 20, 2014 7:58 am

I just bought a half a steer. Its going to be tasty.

cnxtim
August 20, 2014 8:00 am

Shock! Horror! Filet of Jimminy C anyone? What next?
Oh no those stalwart icons of the CAGW cultists are coming down! Whatever will we use for those wonderful bright sky – backlit shots of ‘pollution’ streaming skyward from evil fossil fuel chimneys;now?,
Battersea towers are no more;
http://www.designboom.com/architecture/battersea-power-station-dismantling-chimneys-08-20-2014/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_source=subscribers

Frosty
August 20, 2014 8:00 am

Sure … I’ll eat all sorts of bugs … but you can go first; please, be my guest!

August 20, 2014 8:00 am

It’s too early to comment coherently. I need another cup of Soylent Brown.

August 20, 2014 8:02 am

Since “climate change” will open up huge swaths of Canada and Siberia for farming, the problem should resolve itself.

August 20, 2014 8:03 am

There is always plankton from the space:
Traces of plankton and other microorganisms were found on the outside of the International Space Station. Russian officials say the plankton was not brought into space with the launch, but that it was brought by air currents from Earth.
Interestingly, the tiny organisms manage to survive in the near vacuum of space, despite the extremely low temperatures, lack of oxygen, and cosmic radiation.
Microorganisms were found during a routine walk in space by russian astronauts Olek Artemjev and Alexander Skvortsov They used wipes to polish the windows surfaces and discovered the presence of plankton and other organisms.
This type of plankton is not known at the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where the Russian modules were launched from, and scientists believe that they are not brought into space during launch. NASA has yet to announce whether they are present on the American side of the International Space Station.

AndyZ
August 20, 2014 8:03 am

I remember seeing a video some 20+ years ago with John Robbins urging Iguana as the food of choose (over cattle) due to water, feed, and methane.

August 20, 2014 8:10 am

NC Brian:
Not only J the B; we had a trainee Minister at our church who had been a Royal Marine Commando; during training he had to, or at least did, eat locusts and honey and he said the combination was delicious. The story made a superb Children’s Address.
I haven’t tried it myself though – the only locusts we have here are all at Brussels, Westminster and Holyrood.

Steven Hoffer
August 20, 2014 8:11 am

There’s enough food to feed 9 billion people now. With more people on earth over nourished than under nourished…. Isn’t this a distribution issue versus a production issue?

oeman50
August 20, 2014 8:16 am

Why don’t we turn the crickets into fuel and eat the corn, instead?

EternalOptimist
August 20, 2014 8:16 am

crickets on Mars. it’s all becoming clear to me now. the grand vision

bobl
August 20, 2014 8:22 am

Clearly math and research are not the warmists strong suit. I might also add that in Australia at least, more than 70% of arable land is not cultivated.

Lee L
August 20, 2014 8:24 am

Ok. We’ve all heard it before but….maybe if the UN worked at increasing the standard of living of the poorest and most fertile 2 billion, the birth rate would fall , as it has everywhere else, maybe even to the point where that 2 billion will no longer even replace itself as is the case here in Canada.
Failing that, we dont KNOW how to change climate. We dont KNOW how to do commercial FUSION.
We KNOW how to do contraception.

August 20, 2014 8:25 am

Jings, which word put my post into “waiting for moderation”?

Tom Mills
August 20, 2014 8:25 am

During the war years & for some time after, practically no food was thrown away. Families, like ours, who lived through it still waste very little regardless of what date is on the packaging. The food companies seem to do well enough out of it. Reminds me of the mustard magnate, Colman, who claimed he made more money out of what was left on the plate than the amount that was eaten.

E.M.Smith
Editor
August 20, 2014 8:28 am

This is just another in the long series of FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) efforts from The Club Of Rome (va the “Limits To Growth” crowd). There is no shortage of food, nor is their a shortage of how to make more of it. The problem in food production is typically over production (thus all the price subsidies and ‘farm support’ and all).
There is a distribution issue with power brokers in many countries making a mess of things for their own gain. But that has nothing to do with production.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/grains-and-why-food-will-stay-plentiful/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/knowing-beans-and-lentils-and-peas-and/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/leucaena-leucocephala-collection-of-links/
We run farms for maximum profit and minimum cost, not for maximum production (or they would all be greenhouses…) When production is an issue, we use slightly more expensive means and increase production a lot.
In particular, The System Of Rice Intensification can get between 5 x and 10 x the total rice out of a hectare of land. It takes more work, though…
Also note that a LOT of food is produced in Southern California and Southern Central Valley California ( my home town in Northern Central Valley California would get to “110 F in the shade, and there aint no shade…” and we grew lots of peaches and rice, mostly for export. It is hotter down south where your vegetables and saladings for the nation originate…) Also a lot is grown around Phoenix. The Sunset Garden book notes that some plants get overheated in Phoenix during July / August… so you grow them the rest of the year instead and grow things like tomatoes then…
In short: Until any given growing area is hotter than Phoenix where I personally experienced 125 F one summer what we do is gain growing season in the cool months and get more food not less. Once everywhere is 125 F+, then we can worry as at that point we “only” have a 10 month growing season for cool crops and there are only so many tomatoes, watermellon, and tepary beans you can eat…
The whole “issue” is a non-issue from folks who have no clue how to run a farm (or garden).

JRM
August 20, 2014 8:30 am

I’ll stick to a burgers and brat’s.
If crickets become the next hot food, other insects are almost certain to follow. Keep an eye on meal worms, fly larvae, caterpillars, black soldier flies and wax worms.
If we have to eat insects to save the planet, moving to Mars is sounding better already.
Save the planet, put down that burger.
http://www.pressherald.com/2014/07/30/vegetarian-kitchen-want-to-help-the-suffering-planet/

David Chappell
August 20, 2014 8:43 am

Deep-fried insects of many kinds are already highly-prized gourmet street food in Thailand.

Rhys Kent
August 20, 2014 8:43 am

I would ask Matt Mcfarland if he knows who Norman Borlaug is. He won’t be allowed to use his computer to get the answer. He has to know. If he doesn’t then his entire article can be judged useless and ignorant on that basis alone.

michael hart
August 20, 2014 8:50 am

EternalOptimist says:
August 20, 2014 at 8:16 am
crickets on Mars. it’s all becoming clear to me now. the grand vision

I suspect Ziggy Stardust ate The Spiders from Mars.

Ed Fix
August 20, 2014 8:51 am

Oh, so now we’re suddenly interested in feeding the people of the world? How about let’s start by scrapping the INSANE policy of keeping the high-grade food (corn) we used to ship to the rest of the world and turning it into low-grade automobile fuel?

August 20, 2014 8:53 am

You sure this isn’t being promoted by the cows in the Chick-fil-a commercials.
“Eat Mor Krikets”

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